tivo

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against TiVo in a San Francisco federal court, claiming that the DVR company has infringed upon two of its US patents--which cover technologies for securely purchasing and delivering video and for displaying programmable information respectively, Bloomberg reported yesterday. Microsoft, which claims that TiVo is illegally using the technologies described by the patents in its set-top boxes, its software and its subscription service, is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order to prevent TiVo from using the technologies.

DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, has strongly criticized the US cable industry in a response to a recently issued RFI from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that seeks "comment on how the Commission can encourage innovation in the market for video devices that will assist the Commission’s development of a National Broadband Plan" (note: for more on the RFI, see the article published on itvt.com, December 7th).

Evolution Digital--a division of Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators--said last week that it is supplying TiVo HD DVR's to TVMAX, a regional cable operator that specializes in providing services to MDU's and that serves the greater Houston area.

Evolution Digital--a division of Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators--said Tuesday that Compton Communications has become the first Canadian operator to select its TiVo HD DVR offering. "Now that the TiVo HD DVR is a one-box solution in Canada, acting as the sole cable box, TiVo's brand recognition as the world's leading user interface and DVR made it the logical next step to enhance our product offering," Travis Campbell, marketing manager for Compton Communications, said in a prepared statement. "It has been Compton's goal to offer our customers the very best, cutting-edge entertainment choices available.

TiVo announced Tuesday that movie rental chain Blockbuster's Blockbuster On Demand service can now be accessed over-the-top on broadband-connected TiVo Series2, TiVo Series3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL DVR's. A deal between TiVo and Blockbuster was first announced in March.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

TiVo and Research in Motion (RIM) on Wednesday launched a free remote-scheduling application for BlackBerry devices. The app, which works with standalone TiVo Series2 and later DVR's (but not with TiVo-enabled cable and satellite boxes) and requires BlackBerry OS 4.2.0 or later, features an interface that replicates the look-and-feel of the standard TiVo set-top interface. Among other things, the app lets users browse programming categories, popular shows, and daily picks; search for shows by keyword, title, category and actor/director; and add programming alerts to their BlackBerry calendar.

Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators, has abandoned a strategy based on tru2way headends and set-top boxes because the economics "simply don't add up" for tier-two and tier-three operators, according to a new article by Jeff Baumgartner of Cable Digital News. The company told Baumgartner that it now believes that broadband-connected HD DVR's from TiVo are a more cost-effective alternative than tru2way for smaller operators looking to launch advanced interactive TV services, even though it had lined up a number of overseas set-top box manufacturers to supply it with tru2way boxes.

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time constraints, we are covering a number of this issue's news stories in round-up/summary form. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule in the coming days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we have decided to focus our editorial efforts this week on news that has been less widely covered (or not covered anywhere else at all). Three of the more widely covered news stories from the past few days are covered in summary/round-up form below. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule over the next few days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

i.TV (pronounced "eye-dot-TV"), a Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up that offers a popular free iPhone/iPod application of the same name (note: the app is billed as allowing users to browse constantly updated, localized TV and movie listings, as well as a catalog of hundreds of thousands of TV and movie titles available for download; it also includes 1) various social features, allowing users to write reviews, rate shows, and recommend shows to their friends via email alerts; 2) video support, allowing users to watch TV previews and movie trailers; and 3) ecommerce support, allowing users to purchase movie tickets), will today announce the "i.TV Remote Contr

TiVo--which earlier this week announced a deal that will see cable overbuilder, RCN, offering a co-branded TiVo box as its primary DVR and using the now quite extensive line-up of broadband video programming available through the device to supplement and differentiate its own VOD service (see article published on itvt.com, August 5th)--announced Wednesday that it is making available "hundreds" of free broadband videos to broadband-connected TiVo Series3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL subscribers via new "podcast channels." Providers of the new channels includ

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has provisionally rejected two of the claims in TiVo's so-called "Time Warp" patent (US #6,233,389), which is at the center of a long-running lawsuit that the company has brought against DISH Network and the latter's spin-off company, EchoStar. (Note: the judge in the case, David Folsom, recently found DISH Network and EchoStar to be in contempt of court for having continued to infringe upon the TiVo patent via a supposed "workaround," and ordered DISH Network to disable nearly 4 million of its DVR's--a ruling that was subsequently stayed--and to pay TiVo an additional $103 million, plus interest, in damages.

Cable overbuilder/triple-play provider, RCN, announced Tuesday that it has entered into a strategic relationship with TiVo that will see it offering co-branded, "uniquely configured" TiVo HD DVR's to its residential and small business customers. TiVo will be RCN's "primary" DVR offering, the company says (note: while RCN, which currently offers Motorola DCX3416 DVR's, will be the first cable MSO to offer TiVo as its primary DVR, Comcast and Cox have signed deals with TiVo that see them integrating its software onto their existing set-tops; the Comcast deal sees TiVo service being offered in New England and--shortly--in Chicago, while the Cox deal sees the MSO testing TiVo service in New England).

TiVo announced last week that its StopWatch ratings service (collects anonymous second-by-second audience research data from TiVo boxes) is now offering a new metric that it calls Pure Program Ratings. The metric, which TiVo says is derived using the number of TiVo subscribers viewing a program in live- or timeshifted mode, excluding the commercials, is designed to calculate the total potential audience for commercials during a given program.